It certainly does take a village!
Hillary Rodham Clinton had it
right when she wrote a book on how it takes a village to raise a child. But
that famous proverb can be applied to just about anything, including writing
research papers.
Even though the paper is on its
third draft and still not completely done, I want to take this opportunity to
thank my village people for helping me get this far. So what if it’s a little
premature to offer my appreciation. I feel the need.
The proposal, Designing a Photography Course for High
School Teachers, is 16 pages of other people’s research, and glued together
by APA-style citations. It didn’t start out that way, of course. After sitting in front of the computer
for months, dazed and confused, I realized I needed lots of help. It was time
to reach out. Thanks to the following segments of population in my village:
·
Bowling Green University Learning Design program
graduate Aaron Carpenter for meeting with me before I even started writing the
paper. He helped me formulate an idea for the project.
·
Candace
Bowen, John Bowen and Mark Goodman, my project committee co-chairs. I especially want to thank Candace, the director of the Center for Scholastic Journalism
at Kent State University, for sending back (in a timely manner) my first draft, which had lots and lots of comment boxes highlighting the mistakes and changes I needed to make.
She
pointed out that the first draft was too full of myself, which is a research
paper no-no. When writing research papers, stay away from sentences that begin
with the following two words: I believe. I think. I will. I hope. The key to writing a thesis is write down
what you hope to accomplish, then search and cite other people to back up your
points. This takes the “I” out of the equation.
The paper also had lots of quotation
marks, which are for journalists, not researchers. I admit APA style is
the hardest concept for me to learn and do.
·
All of the researchers cited in the paper. Without
their prior research on photography and education, it couldn’t have been
written.
·
Kent State journalism grad student Shelley Blundell, KSU Journalism
Educator graduate Marina Hendricks,
and University of Toledo Center for Writing grad volunteer Shannon McKeehen. They were my second
pair of eyes.
·
Springfield High School (Holland, Ohio) English
teacher Mark Davidson for letting me
interview him for the paper.
·
APA Made Easy (APA 6th Edition) (Kindle version) by
Scott Matkovich. I wish I would have bought this book before I
started writing. It walks you through the whole writing process from the very beginning; choosing your font,
setting margins, etc. That would have saved me (and my village people) a lot of
frustration.
Now that the draft is nearly
complete, it’s finally time to begin the fun part: designing the course.
